


Stay

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: After the final battle, Bellatrix wakes up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for scrumptiousinternetllama over on the [Femmeslash Drabble Tag](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/44309/60355860/1/Femmeslash-Drabble-Tag).

Bellatrix's mind shifts from asleep to awake in the span of a heartbeat, but she can't remember her dreams. She used to dream of falling, of her lord's face when she first met him (when he was handsome, when she was young), of silly things her waking mind would never think. Now she thinks of green light coming at her and knows it was not a dream. This is not, either.

She opens her eyes.

Bed, dresser, table. Rocking chair with a dark-haired girl curled up under a blanket, reading a book. Pale green walls. She's been here before, months ago.

The girl looks up from her book. "Are you actually awake?"

Bellatrix stares at her. Pansy Parkinson looks no different than she had the last time they were here in the Parkinson cabin deep in a Scottish forest, if perhaps with more articles of clothing on her body. "No, I am only pretending," Bellatrix eventually says. "What happened? Why am I here?"

Pansy gives her a certain look. "I think you're awake now, but you've woken from your healing coma once before, though you quickly fell asleep after calling me a bitch."

"Did I have a reason to?"

"None. I saved your life. Molly Weasley nearly killed you—do you remember?"

Bellatrix nodded. "I taunted her, but anger made her a better dueler, rather than a worse one. I don't remember you being there."

"I didn't fight. I left the castle with the younger students."

Bellatrix huffs, but her anger is absent. When she'd been tasked by her lord to mentor this girl—politics, he'd said, and told her she could get rid of her in a month—Bellatrix had looked at her and seen only weakness. Most of humanity looked weak to her after a decade spent in Azkaban, but children seemed especially fragile. Pansy was cowardly and her devotion to the Dark Lord was more of a robe that she put on and took off at the end of each day instead of a brand on her very soul. Nevertheless, Bellatrix had minded her company much less than she'd expected. Days turned into months, and months led them here.

"But you came back."

"I did." Pansy's eyes are dark and as hard as her features. "I couldn't stand not knowing. And I was right to go back— you were losing your duel. Molly's curse hit you, but it didn't kill you right away. When she got distracted, I took your body back here. I healed you."

Not to St. Mungo's, Bellatrix reads. Because, "Our lord is dead."

Pansy doesn't prove her wrong. "Potter killed him. I'm sorry. There was nothing I—or you—could've done."

Bellatrix hasn't cried in decades. She doesn't remember how, anymore. But there's an ache in her soul that she knows will never go away. She gave her life, soul, body to her lord, to use as he wished. Even with him gone, his claim will always linger. His mark will always stay.

"I would have died with my lord," Bellatrix tells her. It is the truth, the complete and final truth. "You needn't have— you could have let me die." She would have been content. Not happy—only her lord's happiness would have given her that, and her lord's death would have never brought him that.

"I know. I didn't do it for you. I did it because I could, and because I wanted to." Pansy reaches over to the dresser and hands Bellatrix a small mirror. "You have a scar on the right side of your jaw from the curse and on your left shoulder from where you fell onto the rocks." She keeps talking, but Bellatrix doesn't hear her.

The woman who looks back at her from the mirror looks healthy. She looks almost sane. It feels like a stranger has burrowed underneath Bellatrix's skin and had the gall to make herself at home. The healing coma, using her own magic to power it, had erased so many of the familiar signs of Azkaban.

"How long has it been?" Bellatrix asks, still looking down at the mirror.

"Two months."

Not too long. Not unforgivably long. Bellatrix puts the mirror down. "I was right; you are a bitch. What now?"

"If you want to leave, I won't stop you."

"You wouldn't be able to."

Pansy inclines her head. "I won't try. According to my friend at Gringotts, Potter hasn't taken over your bank account despite Sirius leaving everything to him. You could clean it out and go stage a prison break from Azkaban. Or go after Molly. Your wand is in your pocket."

Both options sound inviting. "But?"

"You can't come back here if you choose to take revenge. I— I love you." Huffing a laugh at the expression on Bellatrix's face, Pansy adds, "I know, I know. You took me to bed thrice and told me you were only extending your mentorship to the bedroom, nothing more."

It's not quite true. Bellatrix had been weak. She'd wanted something soft, if only for a night. One night turned to two, and two to three, and she'd woken up the third morning in this very room and realized she could not allow someone else to work their way into her soul this way. She had nothing left to give. Even with her lord's death, that hasn't changed.

"But I can't help you. I want to build a life in this stupid world that's going to be run by halfbloods and muggleborns and Minister Granger, probably. I wasn't made for war. I'm done fighting. I like working at St. Mungo's, even if it is side by side with blood traitors. I won't give that up for a short-lived life on the run until the aurors catch up with us."

"You'd prefer I stayed here and played house with you?" Bellatrix sighs, running her hand through her hair. It's shorter than it used to be. It's true that without her lord and the rest of his supporters, Bellatrix likely wouldn't get very far. She remembers the end of the first war: her and Rodolphus, mad with grief, going after blood traitors until the aurors caught up with them. It's a pity she's now too sane to consider the same path. Pansy's healing had been much too effective. "I'd go mad within days."

"You could do something else. Change your name, change your face a little. Join the Weird Sisters, play professional Exploding Snap, write a slanderous account of Severus Snape's sexual exploits with various potions ingredients. Do anything. Maybe have more sex with me. Stay." By the end, Pansy quirks a smile, but she doesn't look too hopeful.

Maybe that's what does it, the knowing look in Pansy's eyes. The one that says she's put herself on the line, but it's no use. Bellatrix remembers it well. She leans in, kisses it off of Pansy's face.

Pansy's lips are as soft as she remembers, nothing like her lord's. But she remembers heated kisses, hard bites, spells that Bellatrix had never even known about. Pansy has never been completely soft.

"I'll stay for tonight, at least," Bellatrix tells her, and Pansy's next kiss is deeper.

A night. Two.

Three.

 _I won't stay forever,_ Bellatrix tells herself, but without her lord to guide her, it's easy to give in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
